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The Post-Audit Debrief Most Teams Get Wrong
Why most debriefs fail to change the next audit—and how to turn them into real design inputs
By William Englehaupt
As one audit cycle closes and the next begins, most teams go through some form of debrief. In theory, this is where learning happens, where teams step back, reflect on what worked, what didn’t, and carry those insights forward.
In practice, it rarely works that way.
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Debriefs are often rushed or treated as closure rather than input. The questions are familiar—what went well, what didn’t—but the discussion stays at the surface. Late nights, difficult clients, tight deadlines. The symptoms are easy to identify. The underlying causes are not. READ MORE →
Shut Down the Scarcity Mentality
Reconsider your prices. Here are 10 questions to help.
By Martin Bissett
Business Development On a Budget
Undercharging – or lowballing as it’s also called – is the scourge of the profession. It has always been present, and unfortunately, it will probably be with us for the foreseeable future.
Undercharging is directly related to fear – fear of rejection.
MORE by Martin Bissett
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When you are building your pipeline according to the process, you have assigned fees you think might be in the ballpark of what you believe you could get from a new piece of work or a new client. You may tend to estimate on the low side, which is not a bad idea in theory, because it lets you be pleasantly surprised when it’s anything beyond that.
Donny Shimamoto: Build Careers That Bend, Not Break | MOVE Like This
Flexible systems help accounting professionals remain, contribute, and advance when life’s responsibilities change.
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MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines Research
When caregiving responsibilities collide with work, even the most committed professionals can find themselves questioning whether their careers are still sustainable.
In this episode of MOVE Like This, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies and inspiration architect at the Center for Accounting Transformation, joins Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk to discuss what accounting firms can do to better support employees with caregiving responsibilities. Drawing from his own experience as a caregiver and his firm’s long-standing flexible work model, Shimamoto explains why supporting caregivers isn’t about creating complicated new policies. Instead, it’s about building thoughtful systems, training managers, and planning work in ways that recognize employees have lives outside the office.
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Shimamoto shares how becoming a caregiver for his great-aunt changed his own perspective on the issue. While many people associate caregiving with raising young children, his experience highlighted how responsibilities for aging parents, relatives, and others often arrive unexpectedly and affect employees across every stage of their careers. Rather than viewing caregiving as a temporary accommodation for a small group of employees, he believes firms should recognize it as a reality that will affect nearly everyone at some point in their lives.
That shift in thinking changes how organizations design policies, manage workloads, and retain experienced professionals.
Emerging Trends Are Reshaping Advisory-CAS
Don’t just buy technology; strategically activate it.
By Hitendra Patil
Client Accounting Services: The Definitive Success Guide
Advisory is changing rapidly and it is not just in what firms offer, but in how clients think, how technology fits in and how pricing evolves. This article examines the emerging shifts redefining the Advisory-CAS world, from burnout and outdated service models to the increasing demand for proactive, strategic insight. You will see what’s fading and what’s rising, and where to focus to stay ahead.
MORE by Hitendra Patil
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Most surveys focus on direct responses, but the real value comes from analyzing what those responses reveal, especially in context. The nuances, patterns and implications hidden within the answers often provide the most strategic insights, particularly when you connect the dots across service lines, firm models, client dynamics and workforce pressure points.
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Kenji Kuramoto: AI Agents Are Coming for SALY — and the Billable Hour | The Disruptors
Intelligent agents will reshape accounting workflows, pricing models, employee development, and the value firms deliver to clients.
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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
For CPA Trendlines
Kenji Kuramoto says accounting firms will be changing how they work — and even who does the work.
“The future of accounting firms,” Kuramoto says, “is going to be made up of a workforce that has two components. It’ll have people and agents.”
His current company, Basis, where he serves as managing partner in residence, is building those agents. Kuramoto says approximately 30% of the top 25 accounting firms are using them across client accounting services, tax, and audit. The agents perform multistep workflows such as reconciliations, account categorization, and first-pass tax return preparation, including work on complex partnership returns.
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By the end of the year, Kuramoto expects some practice lines to achieve efficiency gains of 60% to 80% by using agents. Within a year, “we should probably be able to see agents working and collaborating together, overall, being directed and architected by people,” he says.